This field reflects recent sociological interests in food studies and global agro-food systems, resources and the environment, community sustainability, rural-urban linkages, the transnationalization of labour regimes and social movements in the rural context. Students specializing in this field will be encouraged to take a comparative and historical approach, focusing on cross-national and inter-regional studies where possible, and to examine how class, gender, race and ethnicity play out in each particular substantive topic comprising the rural field.

This field reflects recent sociological interests in changing patterns of work and employment in comparative contexts, labour regimes, industrial and organizational change, organizations and protest, education for work and the regulation of work. These trends are located in the broader processes of globalization, economic restructuring and fundamental shifts in public policy. Students specializing in this field will be encouraged to focus on the dialectical relationship between the configurations of gender, class, race and ethnicity, and the transformation of work.

All students in the PhD program are required to successfully complete four courses during the first two semesters of study. Students must also successfully complete two qualifying examinations and a research proposal, and produce and orally defend a dissertation on a topic that has been approved by the advisory committee.

Only applicants with a recognized MA degree in Sociology and with high academic standing (80% or higher) in their graduate-level studies will be admitted into the program.

Students are expected to have successfully completed Master’s-level courses in sociological theory as well as Master’s-level qualitative and quantitative methodology courses in Sociology. It is also expected that students will have taken courses across the breadth of Sociology.

Graduate students are admitted into the program in the fall semester only. The application deadline is February 1. The on-line application and application information can be found at http://www.uoguelph.ca/registrar/graduatestudies/index.cfm?apply